The latest live letter from the producer just went up.Here. No subtitles yet but it shows some great footage of Thanalan and Uldah and some port towns around Limsa Lominsa. I've stopped playing the beta until they have more consistent playtimes. Right now I'm not interested in burning out on content before actual release. Being limited to Gridania is bad enough but having to restart 4 times sucks. I will second Parn's assessment of the game. I'm a much bigger fan of action combat for MMOs but there's enough going on skills-wise endgame in 1.0, I'm sure ARR will be just as interesting. There's alot more mobility required for combat which is a good thing.

next beta phase is in 2 months? jesus i was under the impression it was coming out soon. guess ill be playing phantasy star online 2 a bit longer then.

This is not accurate. There have been no announcements as of yet. We are in week 3 of phase 1, each phase is supposed to be roughly 4 weeks with 1-2 weeks between each phase per the roadmap published late last year. They do reserve the right to change their testing schedule as needed and their stance is that the game will launch when it's good and ready. Realistically, do not expect a retail release until late summer at the earliest.